SQ MIni to fly to Cairns

[KeithMEL]

http://www.asiatraveltips.com/news14/511-SilkAir.shtml

...
SilkAir plans to operate the Cairns service three times weekly on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays, through circular routings with Darwin.

The inaugural flight and subsequent Saturday flights will depart Singapore for Cairns non-stop and then return to Singapore via Darwin.

The Monday and Thursday flights will fly to Cairns via Darwin and then return to Singapore non-stop.

...

[Kyo]

Very interesting, thanks!

[MAN Flyer]

Not a surprise to hear any of the SQ group flying to Cairns, only that they have waited so long to try, but I had to do a double take on how the flights were routing!.

[demue]

It's and MI circular route which they do quite commonly these days to serve destinations that would not warrant enough volume on their own. Of course the switch in direction is a funny one, but also done on other routes.

[Airbus SAS A340-500]

What kind of payload restriction would MI be taking on their B738s for SIN-CNS and CNS-SIN? At 5009km as the crow flies, it surely is one of the longest nonstop B738 flights. If I'm not wrong, only COPA's PTY-EZE and Kenya's NBO-DEL are longer and MIAT's SIN-PEK is slightly shorter. With this, it also means DRW would have 6x weekly frequencies, though it is actually only 5x weekly nonstop SIN-DRW and 4x weekly DRW-SIN.

http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=SIN-CNS...K&MS=wls&DU=km

When Bali was announced as an MI destination, I was actually wondering why they did not launch Cairns as SIN-DPS-CNS... There is virtually zero competition.

Does anyone know about the possibility of MI entering the SIN-POM market? Total flight distance is just slightly shorter than SIN-CNS. Air Niugini seems to be doing well with its monopoly of 5x weekly B763s. They used to have a once-weekly B738 flight and 4x weekly B763 but now all flights are done with the B763s.

[sqdazz]

Virgin does perth-phuket which is similar distance as singapore-cairns, on a 737. just slightly shorter.